Naming Spans and Attributes
Span names
Backends use span names and some attributes to group similar spans together. To group spans properly, give them short and concise names. The total number of unique span names should be less than 1000. Otherwise, you will have too many span groups and your Uptrace experience will suffer.
The following names are good because they are short, distinctive, and help grouping similar spans together:
Span name | Comment |
---|---|
GET /projects/:id | Good. A route name with placeholders instead of params. |
select_project | Good. A function name without arguments. |
SELECT * FROM projects WHERE id = ? | Good. A database query with placeholders. |
The following span names are bad because they contain params and args:
Span name | Comment |
---|---|
GET /projects/42 | Bad. Contains a variable param 42 . |
select_project(42) | Bad. Contains a variable 42 . |
SELECT * FROM projects WHERE id = 42 | Bad. Contains a variable arg 42 . |
Popular attributes
For the full list of attributes, see semantic attributes, but here are the most popular attributes to get you started.
Attribute | Comment |
---|---|
service.name | Logical name of the service. Uptrace provides an overview of all services. |
service.version | The version string of the service API or implementation. |
host.name | Name of the host. Uptrace provides an overview of all hosts. |
deployment.environment | Name of the deployment environment (aka deployment tier). Uptrace groups spans from different environments separately. |
Span system
Depending on the presence of some semantic attributes, Uptrace assigns each span a system, for example:
http:service_name
system for HTTP spans.db:postgresql
for PostgreSQL queries.log:error
for log messages withERROR
severity.exception
for exceptions.
Using a system, you can easily filter spans that have the same set of attributes, for example, all database spans.
HTTP
To monitor HTTP clients and servers, use HTTP semantic convention.
A minimal HTTP server example:
SpanName = "GET /users/:id"
SpanKind = "server"
http.method = "GET"
http.route = "/users/:id"
A minimal HTTP client example:
SpanName = "GET /users/:id"
SpanKind = "client"
http.method = "GET"
http.route = "/users/:id"
RPC
To monitor remote procedure calls, use RPC semantic convention.
A minimal RPC server example:
SpanName = "AuthService/Auth"
SpanKind = "server"
rpc.system = "grpc"
rpc.service = "AuthService.Auth"
rpc.method = "Auth"
Database
To monitor database queries and Redis/memcached commands, use DB semantic convention.
A minimal DB example:
SpanName = "pg.query"
SpanKind = "client"
db.system = "postgresql"
db.statement = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 123"
A minimal Redis command example:
SpanName = "GET"
SpanKind = "client"
db.system = "redis"
db.statement = "GET foo"
Messages
To monitor producers and consumers (queues), use Messaging semantic convention.
A minimal producer example:
SpanName = "send MyQueue"
SpanKind = "producer"
messaging.system = "rabbitmq"
messaging.destination = "MyQueue"
messaging.destination_kind = "queue"
A minimal consumer example:
SpanName = "process MyQueue"
SpanKind = "consumer"
messaging.system = "rabbitmq"
messaging.operation = "process"
messaging.destination = "MyQueue"
messaging.destination_kind = "queue"
Functions as a Service
To monitor serverless functions, use FaaS semantic convention.
A minimal server example:
SpanName = "my-lambda-function"
SpanKind = "server"
faas.trigger = "http"
faas.name = "my-lambda-function"
A minimal client example:
SpanName = "my-lambda-function"
SpanKind = "client"
faas.trigger = "http"
faas.invoked_name = "my-lambda-function"
Plain functions
To monitor plain functions, use Source code attributes.
A minimal example:
SpanName = "org.FetchUser"
service.name = "myservice"
code.function = "org.FetchUser"
code.filepath = "org/user.go"
code.lineno = "123"
Exceptions
To monitor errors and exceptions, use Exceptions semantic convention and events API.
A minimal example:
EventName = "exception"
exception.type = "*exec.ExitError"
exception.message = "exit status 1"
exception.stack = "<exception stack>"
The same with Go programming language:
span := trace.SpanFromContext(ctx)
span.AddEvent(ctx, "exception",
// Exception type and message.
label.String("exception.type", "*exec.ExitError"),
label.String("exception.message", "exit status 1"),
label.String("exception.stack", string(runtime.Stack())),
)
Logs
A minimal example:
EventName = "log"
log.severity = "info"
log.message = "something failed"
log.params.key1 = "value1"
log.params.key2 = "value2"
Internal system
internal
is a special system for spans that can't be categorized using the rules above and that have SpanKind = "internal"
.
If for some reason you want to move a particular group of spans from internal
type, you can either:
- Add proper type-specific semantic attributes.
- Change
SpanKind
to any other valid value (for example,server
orclient
).